Bella P. […] was tried three times under Section 129 in her life: during Austro‐Fascism in 1936, [German Fascism] in 1942 and Allied‐occupied Austria in 1949. Section 129 of the Austrian penal code persecuted homosexual men and women between 1852 until 1971. It differed from the equivalent Section 175 in the German code by including women in its definition, something that was distinct from almost all other penal codes in Europe at this time.

There was no anti‐crossdressing penal code in Austria (although technically neither in Germany, with Section 183 levied against cases of ‘crossdressing’ as a form of Unfug, or gross mischief).³⁴ 1920s Austria did not see the proliferation of the Transvestitenschein (a police‐issued certificate for people who ‘cross‐dressed’), contrasted to cities such as Hamburg and Berlin, with requests for the Schein to be implemented in Vienna being denied on the basis that no permission was needed.³⁵

This had ramifications for post‐Anschluss Vienna, since Section 129 was not replaced by Section 175, nor was Section 183 implemented, after Austria was annexed into the Third Reich on 12 March 1938.³⁶ In contrast to other areas of the Third Reich, ‘gender non‐conformity’ was not treated as direct evidence of homosexuality under [German Fascism] in Vienna.

This significantly altered the ways in which P. could interact with the state, namely in manipulating legal loopholes to evade sentencing or harsher conviction where she sometimes conceded to gendered but not sexual transgression.

[…]

Having narrowly evaded imprisonment and successfully reaching the end of her probation period in 1939, P. was in trouble with the law again in 1941. On the evening of 8 March 1941, lieutenant Hans Kühne was off duty and in civilian clothing at Café Excelsior. There he made the acquaintance of two women, one of whom was called Bella — this was P. — and the other Paula. According to Kühne, after drinking with and courting the women, the three of them retired to Bella’s flat, but Paula soon left.

Once Kühne and Bella were alone, Bella began to undress, which Kühne said he found ‘suspicious’ later in the police report. Kühne claimed that it was at this point that he realised that Bella was wearing a wig and women’s clothing to ‘deceive’ him. Reacting in shock, Kühne slapped P. across the face, drawing his pistol and demanding to see her identification. He then went straight to the police station — at 5.30 am — where he deposited the wig and high heels from the flat as evidence.⁴¹

When called for interrogation on 12 March, P. testified that she and Paula had dressed up as a ‘carnival joke’ [Fasching]. P. had borrowed a black dress, leopard coat and silver dancing shoes from Paula, and they made Kühne’s acquaintance at Café Excelsior. According to P., ‘while still in the bar the man said to me, “you are a boy, right?”, to which I answered in the affirmative and lifted my wig a little’.⁴²

After coming back to her flat, P. went to the bathroom and on her return found Kühne lying on the bed having ‘already ejaculated’. She added in her report (drolly, I like to imagine) that he ‘had probably been masturbating’. P. therefore depicted Kühne as the sexual deviant, and herself as the innocent bystander. Her friend Paula corroborated, confirming that Kühne was indeed aware of P.’s ‘identity’ (read: male) prior to entering her home.⁴³

Here, P. yet again played on her ambiguity, emphasising being read as a man in order to deflect blame from herself, as well as any claims to deceit. P.’s actions here chafe all the expectations of a romantic/tragic narrative because she failed to conform to acceptable (trans)femininity. Heroes of the trans past are authentically themselves, whereas P. slipped between identities like quicksilver in order to survive.

By tipping her wig to ensure Kühne knew she was wearing one, P. was enacting what Sontag called ‘Being‐As‐Rôleplaying’: a play, a scheme, a dupe to evade sentencing by securing evidence of Kühne’s ‘same‐sex desire’.⁴⁴ But she equally twisted her own femininity into a false ‘Being‐As‐Rôleplaying’ where she presented her womanhood as simply a farce — a carnival joke.

P. was careful to omit any suggestion of sexual contact on her part (which would have incriminated her) but felt no need to hide her ‘cross‐dressing’, despite comparable cases of ‘effeminacy’ landing ‘men who had sex with men’ in concentration camps in Berlin.⁴⁵

We must remember that one of the reasons P. could play up her gendered differences (which allowed her to flip the script on her masculine sexual partners) was precisely because of the ambiguities in legal interpretations of homosexuality in Austria (even) after the Anschluss, not just her canny (and Camp) behaviour. But this equally speaks to how attuned she was to those ambiguities.

Beyond implicating Kühne as sexually deviant, P. also said he was violent; that he had smashed a glass cabinet in her flat and gouged her face on his way out. She thus layered her implication with further gendered differences: Kühne acted violently, hitting her and breaking her property, while she remained helpless and subject to his aggression.

[…]

Gestapo officers […] requested to see P.’s identification and called her ‘queer’ (warmer, or warmer Brüder, a slang term for homosexual men), prompting P. to flee the bar.

A scuffle ensued in the street, with P. shouting ‘Piefkes’ (a derogatory term used for Germans in Austria at this time), and, most brazenly, that ‘Germany will never win the war’, causing a passing police officer and Wehrmacht soldier to gladly help in roughly dragging P. to the nearest Kripo (Kriminalpolizei, or criminal police) office.⁵² […] P.’s main hearing took place 13 March 1942 and conjoined the criminal proceedings from 1941 and 1942.

The defence lawyer appealed for a lenient sentence so that P. could join the military, ‘in order to bring about an improvement in his [sic] tendency through discipline’, but to no avail.⁵⁶ In light of the Café Ostmark incident, the court found P. guilty of unnatural fornication with Kühne, because of ‘the manner of the accused’s presentation and appearance’.

However, P.’s passing as a woman was also cited as a mitigating factor because ‘no one [at the Café] knew that the alleged Bella was a man’.⁵⁷ This demonstrates that with [Fascist] influence over legal matters and personnel, P.’s treatment by the state differed from pre‐Anschluss times, but not completely.⁵⁸ While P.’s femininity was eventually seen as a factor in her ‘sexual deviancy’, her passing exempted her of being charged with public nuisance and a harsher sentence.

Passing also exculpated not only P., but anyone she touched or had relations with from accusations of homosexuality, because they could be forgiven for having made a ‘mistake’. However, P.’s imprisonment lasted much longer than the sentence of ten months, resulting in internment at Natzweiler concentration camp (located in Alsace) in 1943. She was then transferred to Mittelbau‐Dora and Peenemünde, sub‐camps of Buchenwald and Ravensbrück, respectively, where she stayed until 1945.⁵⁹

P. survived her incarcerations between 1942 and 1945. But she was once again charged with Section 129 in 1948 under Allied Occupation. This final case in P.’s story demonstrates the continued effectiveness of her Camp antics beyond the fall of fascism, but also the societal fragility at stake in shoring up the stability of the sex/gender binary in post‐war Europe.

(Emphasis added.)